YSU WOMEN Penguins enter home finale on a high note

They will try to keep the momentum gained from upset of UW-Green Bay. YOUNGSTOWN -- The Youngstown State women's basketball team plays its last regular season home game tonight when it entertains Detroit at the Beeghly Center at 7 p.m. The game is an important one for both teams, as far as seeding for the Horizon League tournament. Detroit (8-18, 5-10) sits in sixth place in the standings, but both YSU (10-15, 4-10) and Loyola (7-18, 4-10) are right behind. Based on the outcome of tonight's game and Saturday's regular season finale at Detroit, the Penguins could finish anywhere between the No. 6 and No. 8 seeds. Youngstown State, though, is coming off its biggest win of the season, a 60-56 victory at nationally-ranked Wisconsin-Green Bay. The Penguins shot 52.6 percent in the second half and made 10 3-pointers in that game, snapping the Phoenix's 55-game home-court league winning streak. Senior Jen Perugini led YSU with 12 points, while Barb Fabianova and Cathy Hanek added 11 apiece. "The kids are on a high, that is for sure," said YSU coach Tisha Hill. "That [was] a great win for this program and for those kids and they definitely deserve it." Lindsey Pasquinzo leads the Titans in scoring (12.7) and rebounding (4.3). Katie Solner is averaging 11.8 points per game. Start of a slide In the teams' first meeting, a 67-43 Detroit win on Dec. 28, Pasquinzo led the Titans with 15 points and eight rebounds. Solner and Joanna Cooper had 10 points apiece. Fabianova led the Penguins with nine points, while Perugini added eight points and 10 rebounds. That loss was the first of four straight for Youngstown State. "This league is crazy," said Hill. "Every team gets up to play every team. You never know what to expect. By no means are we looking at records as far as Detroit and how they've been playing versus what we need to do well. That has been the common denominator with our team. We've got to continue to focus on working hard and doing what we do well and defending what our opponents rely on." The game will mark Senior Night for Perugini, Fabianova, Hanek, Tara Fleming and Melissa Tarrant. "This is a special group," said Hill. "They've done some special things, that's for sure. The five seniors, it just goes without saying the leadership that they've really stepped up. It's helped this team get over a lot of adversity. If it wasn't for that leadership, if it wasn't those kids really continuing to work hard and come in and work hard no matter what's ailing them, things could have went south really quickly with this team and it did not."